In 1991,  a "Great Alligator Hunt" was launched by members of the Norfolk Historical Society.  After a long search, the remains of a surviving Alligator were found at Clearwater West Lake in Northern Ontario.

(Other Alligator remains were discovered, but these were not well preserved and/or not as accessible.)

A team of men drove to Clearwater West Lake to retrieve the decaying hull. With great effort, the hull was returned to Simcoe, its birth place.

In 1993, that Alligator hull was moved to the farm of Ed Chandler, east of Simcoe. The effort to restore it to working order was hampered by a lack of tools, manpower and money.

Thanks to generous service clubs and private donations, lumber and prerequisite tools were purchased. Volunteer members of the Society, together with men required to perform community service and unemployment insurance commission recipients provided the manpower.

This restored Alligator, the W. D. Stalker, was launched in the Lynn River at Simcoe, 13 Jun 1997. In the spring of 1998, the Norfolk Historical Society turned it over to the Town of Simcoe to serve as a tourist attraction.

Today it sits proudly in the Lynn River, a few blocks northeast of the Eva Brook Donly Museum, just five minutes down river from the place of its birth, the location of the old West and Peachey foundry on the northwest corner of Norfolk and Union Streets. 
 

Also see:
The Last Alligator
video



Also see:
Simcoe Alligator

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